Telenor partners to establish "knowledge powerhouse"

• Telenor has is establishing an “open collaboration arena” in Norway
• It has partnered with two of Norway’s leading knowledge institutions
• The Digital Transformation Hub, will be located at the Norwegian School of Economics in Bergen

Telenor is aiming to partner its way to success as a digital service provider (DSP) and transformation contributor to Norway’s digitalisation effort.  It’s lined up some of Norway’s key knowledge institutions to establish what it’s calling an ‘open collaboration arena’ for digital innovation. 

The Norwegian School of Economics in Bergen (NHH) and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, along with other partners have been enlisted to help build a national powerhouse for digital transformation, says Telenor. 

”For a small country like Norway to assert ourselves internationally, top players need to share and collaborate. By connecting NHH and NTNU, and by establishing an open arena based on the knowledge and expertise of large companies within commercialisation of technology, we will build a national powerhouse for digital transformation. Our ambition is to help facilitate accelerated and sustainable digitalisation of Norwegian business and industries,” said Sigve Brekke, President & CEO, Telenor Group.

The new arena, called the Digital Transformation Hub, will be located at the Norwegian School of Economics in Bergen (NHH). In addition to providing a physical space where companies, public institutions, entrepreneurs, students and academia can come together to share knowledge and exchange experiences, the agreement between Telenor and NHH will specialise on research related to technology-driven innovation, digital transformation and behavioral economics.

The Digital Transformation Hub will involve existing two research centers at NHH and engage a large number of researchers and PhD candidates.

Sustainable inclusive growth and the use of, for instance, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be important topics for the research.

The approach also has a social dimension:  NHH’s Centre for Experimental Research on Fairness, Inequality and Rationality (FAIR) will collaborate with the new Digital Transformation Hub to conduct research on customers’ experiences of justice and privacy, when using digitally customised and personalized solutions.

 “Telenor applies Artificial Intelligence (AI), we at NTNU develop AI and NHH puts AI into a business context. Interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation within a broad range of subject matter areas have been a key priority for NTNU since inception. We also want to collaborate with the best academic communities in Norway and internationally. We believe the AI Lab at NTNU and the transformation hub at NHH will contribute to mutually strengthen and improve each other, and we are looking forward to collaborating even closer,” says Torbjørn K. Svendsen, Professor and Director at NTNU Digital at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim.